Thursday, May 19, 2016

Clarins Summer Collection 2016 - photos, swatches, review!

This year's summer collection from Clarins is small, but perfectly formed! I've had it for a while, took photos of it in Ireland, wasn't happy with them so lugged it all over to Spain with me and it was totally worth it!

The Sunkissed Summer collection is all about getting the bronzed glow and having your makeup stay in place all day. That pretty much sums up my makeup goals all throughout the summer because I can tend to suffer with the well known ailment of slidey-offy makeup during the hotter months.

Along with four waterproof eyeshadows comes the Bronzing & Blush Compact (€45) which is a sight to behold. Clarins know how to do bronzers and each summer they bring out a corker, this year being no exception. Now this compact is multifunctional in that it has two matte bronzing shades, a golden shimmery bronzey highlight and a peach blush in the centre. It's my idea of cheek-ular heaven and I think it's absolutely beautiful both in the compact and on my face. The bronze shades give a proper sun kissed glow to the face and the peach blush... Well, it's peach and it's me. We're very happy together.

Having one's makeup slide off one's face isn't a good look. Ever. And I do not want my peach blush down around my jowls at the end of the day, so Clarins Fix' Make-Up (€28) promises to keep everything in place. Along with being a setting spray, it also has skincare properties with aloe vera to help hydrate, Allantoin to help sooth and it acts as an "urban shield" too. Mad Ted. And it smells like roses. If like me you don't wear makeup during the day on holidays, you can use it to refresh the skin during the day. It wasn't hot enough in the evenings to test out it's makeup setting properties, but no doubt when the humidity appears here in Ireland, I'll be putting it to good use!

I'm not the biggest fan of waterproof mascaras because I find they're generally too thin in consistency for my liking. You know me, I like my mascara like I like my men, nice and thick (too much?!) giving me lots of volume and thickness and I hate having to compromise on that in the summer. Well, Clarins Double Fix' Mascara (€22)is what I've been waiting for all these years and I'm kind of annoyed with myself for not realising this was missing in my life.

Lads, this little tube makes all mascaras waterproof.... Or should I say that it acts as a waterproof barrier over your favourite mascara thanks to bitter orange tree essential wax. I've been using it on my lower lashes with mascaras that smudge big time on me and it's amazing! And it can be used on brows too. So if anything else, our eye area will be looking fierce this summer with makeup being where it's supposed to be.

Joining Honey and Raspberry this year in the Instant Light Lip Comfort Oil (€21) family is Red Berry with its nourishing and comforting annatto seed oil.

Honey and Raspberry have been on constant rotation over the past year (you can read the post here and see that I have no originality whatsoever when it comes to me posing with these products... I'd no idea until I went to get the link!) While those two don't give off too much colour, Red Berry gives a lovely juicy tint to the lips and feels as nourishing and looks just as glossy as the others. It's now joined them in my handbag for the summer.

While this isn't a part of the summer collection, I wanted to give a little heads up about one of the Clarins Skin Boosters (€39), a new step to your skincare routine. They've launched three of these; Booster Energy for fatigued skin, Booster Detox for congested skin and Booster Repair for weakened skin. The idea is that you add three to five drops of these to your regular moisturiser or face mask to give your skin a boost. I love this idea and will test it out properly and report back to you!

So once again Clarins have come up trumps with their summer collection. Have you tried any of it yet? And do I need one of the waterproof eyeshadows to test out? For the blog like?